Scanners? I think you mean scanning software. We have our own in-house scanning software. I can't go into detail about their configuration. As far as finding strong or weak stocks is concerned, if you give it some thought, it's not hard to figure out. If you're looking to trade what's in-play or stocks w/news all you have to do is subscribe to a good news service like Briefing.com and go through it every morning pre-market and find stocks with actionable news. Just a little elbow grease.
People have always talked a lot of crap about how useless ET is, how negative it is, how everyone lies about their successes and failures, how there's nothing to be gained from this site (been that way ever since I created my 1st screenname about 6 years ago), but I must beg to differ. 2 days ago I actually decided to search ET (1st time I ever did this in 6 years) and go through a lot of much older posts from early 2000s (when I was just graduating high school) and I'll tell you that there are a lot of gems here for those that are willing to take the time to go through older threads, find traders that make quality statements, then go through that trader's past posts. What you're looking for is here, maybe recently, and maybe not so recently, but here nonetheless. Thanks Sam Morgan. I did a search for NoDoji's old journal and I never found it. But I came across some great posts and great traders, some of which aren't active anymore and some that still are active. Good luck. This is where I started: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=204669 -- you can take it from there. Good luck.
Lesson learned. Don't doubt what the market says. Market indicators have been bullish for some time and I've missed out on some good swing trades. Lesson learned.
Great day today....(-$1,244 ) Traded pretty well with the exception of 1 mistake and 1 bad trade. 1 bad trade is all it takes. BIG - ($772) - horrible trade. The one day I'm not watching Bloomberg they have a breaking LBO story. This is one of my worst trades in a looooong time. Not in dollars lost, but in efficiency-per-share. Horrible. Dropped 3 points in this thing pretty fast. Glad I didn't take size. FCX - ($507) - keystroke error. Therein lies my day. Had some pretty good trades today (took AAPL long earlier), without the two above trades, I'm flat on the day. Did a good job catching some breakouts and breakdowns and sticking to my plans. Those are the key positives that I can take from today. It's been frustrating watching this melt up and I didn't take advantage of any swing trades due to my expectations of a selloff. Trade what you see, not what you think EE! Reset tomorrow.
Slowest day of the year. +128.21 -- 108k shares traded Nothing of note to talk about. May post a few trades later on, but I really just want to get away from my computer right now.
Results: +$726.05; far too many shares traded Created a few problems for myself today and was able to rectify them and finish up okay for the day. I will try to start posting charts of my bad trades in the future to get some feedback from everyone. Proud of myself for taking a big loss in NVDA when it spiked down before breaking wholes (6k shares), and then taking another shot at it long as fade after it broke whole numbers and setup again (3500 shares), and I made my money back that I lost in the first trade and then more. I held it pretty well on the way back up. USG was the one trade that I seem to have daily, that I leave A LOT of money on the table. Improper size in the position and I didn't hold it long enough at all on the short. I must improve this in order to get to the next level. I shorted only 1k shares at 19.60s and covered 19.45s. Terrible. I should've had more size and covered 1st half around 19.11 per my plan and the other half around 19 whole numbers. Realized today after reviewing my data for the year that I've been: - overtrading (commission costs) - taking a lot of trades that aren't setup related (wasting money trying to make something happen) - improperly sizing my positions (I've traded a lot more size in my losers than winners) -- going to start position sizing fade plays just like I size my overnight swing trades (amount of $$$ to risk / entry price-stop price) -- after 4 years I just came across this method of position sizing. This is all that I can post now b/c I'm reviewing my trading data for the YTD to create an action plan to improve. Thanks.
+$704.34 -- 69,400 shares traded -- good job not overtrading I will be posting bad trades with charts on here. I didn't really have any today. I had plenty of losers, but none outside the general course of business. Today I tried out a longer-term timeframe for my breakout/breakdown plays to cut out a lot of the noise that I've been experiencing on the 3-minute charts. I'm now using a 15-min chart to manage breakouts and breakdowns in strong & weak stocks and earnings plays. Looking forward to posting some charts....or not. If I don't have bad ones to post tomorrow, I'll just post my best. Should I just post charts for my best trade of the day and my worst trade of the day?
I think it may be helpful to post charts for your biggest losers initially. I know you said that "it was in the daily course of business", but I can not tell you how many times I have posted a chart and thought, "this can't be improved" and then someone comes along and will put down a comment and makes me go, "how did I not see that". Regardless, almost everything is trial and error, but we have to start somewhere. Good luck.
Nice job the last few days. I'm interested to know what you were doing prior to this new breakout strategy? Was making $700-$2000 considered a good day with your old methods? Keep sticking to the rules!
Friday's results: +$1,477.44 -- 108,200 shares traded Good solid day yesterday. Although I traded over 100k shares, it felt a lot less active and lot more sitting back and watching trades stop themselves out and continue to march along further. I didn't really take many trades because I made a few changes to my approach and I hadn't quite figured out my exit on my losers. I was kind of trading on the fly...and that's not my strength. Wednesday afternoon I reviewed my numbers and the stats indicated that my strength is to give my winners more room to run instead of babysitting trades and getting in and out of the same stock 4-5 times a day. Over the past two days I've found myself holding my best winners nearly all day -- which is a far cry from holding for 10-15 minutes and getting out on the first sign of a wiggle. With this approach, I'll be able to add to winners as they advance upward/downward (I may add to winners at subsequent breakouts this week, but not with much size) So this upcoming week, with my entire approach hammered out, I plan on taking more signals, setting stops and moving on to the next trade. The past two days have been moderately bullish. My breakout style is well positioned to capitalize on somewhat-to-moderately-to-extremely bullish days. It will be interesting to see how effective it is when the market isn't as strong. I hope that now that I'm 100% ready to move forward systematically that the tone doesn't totally shift. I have a breakdown style as well, but I haven't been working this approach during a time where the market has been in a downtrend, so I have no idea how my breakout/breakdown approach will work in that environment. If the market structure shifts, I'll be playing a lot more fades, earnings plays, and looking to short the stocks that have had a nice run recently.